During long airport waits, I’ve often wandered to the magazine rack, my eyes pleasantly glazing over at the diverting covers. Many women’s magazines (with obvious exceptions like BUST and Ms.) are meant to distract us, to offer an escape that an be lovely, but is also generally void of any real social or personal significance. Read More

National Geographic’s photographers are in a league of their own; the senior photo editor Elizabeth Krist explains that “resilience and courage” are paramount as she and her colleagues regularly send photojournalists into tough terrain for an average of eight weeks. The road hasn’t been easy for women, and of the fifty or so staff photographers to have served the society in the past century and a quarter, only four are women.
In celebration of the women of National Geographic, a new exhibit mounted in Washington, D.C. Read More

CocoRosie has floated out of your day dreams and back into your life with the release of their fifth album, Tales of a Grass Widow. The pair's latest video release, "Child Bride," is a striking portrait that depicts just what you're hoping it doesn't.
Directed by Emma Freeman, the vid follows a young member of a rural cult as she's dressed up and sent off with a creepy elder to be his bride. She stares longingly out from her new homestead and mouths: "Whose little girl am I? / The man with the dark hat will take me home tonight / I washed my body... Read More

Well, this is terrible: two men have been arrested by Afghan police due to allegations of beheading a 15-year-old girl after her father turned down a marriage proposal.
The young girl was allegedly attacked while she was walking home with drinking water for her family. “Our investigation shows those who killed her were people who wanted to marry her,” a Kunduz province police official told the BBC. The two suspects were also her relatives.
The father turned down the offer because “she was too young to be engaged.” That, at least, sounds hopeful to me. Read More